California State University, Fullerton - College of Business and Economics

“A reputable state university with an excellent business school,” Cal State Fullerton runs the largest accredited business school in the State of California. For current and future Southern California professionals, CSUF is a great way to get an edge in the business world, without breaking the bank. With a strong faculty and ties in the local business community, this school offers a “quality program at an affordable price.” Whether you choose to go to school full time or part time, the Flex MBA is entirely “customizable,” and “can be moderated in difficulty, depending on course choice and workload.” Taking two classes per semester, flex students can complete the program in fewer than three years. Taking four classes per semester, full-time students can complete the program in sixteen months.

For both full-time and part-time students, the Mihaylo MBA program consists of ten foundation courses, four electives, and a capstone course. Through electives, students can pursue an academic concentration in one of thirteen different fields; there is “great accounting faculty,” as well as a strong finance department at CSUF. In addition to academic programs, the school operates fifteen “Centers of Excellence,” like the Small Business Institute, where faculty and students conduct research and case studies within a real business environment. Across departments, “professors are all very knowledgeable in terms of both theory and real-world experience,” and many “use their lifetime experiences to spice up the class discussions.” While “most professors are outstanding and inspiring,” students admit that the overall quality of the teaching staff can be “inconsistent,” especially when it comes to tenured faculty.

Since many students are balancing work, school, and personal life, most CSUF professors are “sympathetic to the many demands facing graduate students, who have full-time jobs and families.” Overall, CSUF is a “warm environment, with professors who care about students” and an administration that is “supportive and helpful” to its ample student body. “Some admin mix-ups” in the past with regards to books and scheduling have been addressed by a new and expanded staff. All things considered, an MBA at Cal State Fullerton is an “excellent value.” Armed with both academic and practical experience, graduates leave the program “ready to work and lead in the workforce.”

For those who love the surf and sand in Southern California, “CSUF has excellent ties to the local Orange County business community.” Throughout the program, “the pro- fessors and administration work as partners in helping us achieve our career goals.” Students are encouraged to visit the Business Advising Center to meet with career path advisors, who help them choose a concentration, plan their education, and develop a career search strategy. In addition, students can make an appointment with the business career specialist at the Mihaylo Career Center, who helps place graduates in accounting, finance, international business, information systems, and marketing positions.

Though the programs are strong, career development could be improved with the addi- tion of “more networking activities within the program, outside the program, and with other schools that have similar programs.” Students would also like to see Cal State Fullerton continue to build “relationships with higher quality employers and recruiters.” A student explains, “We have a good program, but our career center is geared for under- graduates, and they do no have that much to offer for graduate students.” The school has listened to its students, though, and an expanded career center staff includes a dedicated adviser for MBA students.

After graduating from Cal State Fullerton, MBA candidates join a “large alumni network” of more than 55,000 former students in Southern California and beyond. Currently, Mihaylo graduates are employed at Ford Motor Company, Hewlett Packard, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Nestlé, Fox Sports, KPMG, Warner Brothers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Paramount, Boeing, Deloitte & Touche, US Bank, Verizon, Walt Disney Company, Kaiser Permanente, and Toshiba, among others. In recent years, the mean base salary reported by Cal State Fullerton MBA graduates was over $62,000 annually.

CSUF is a large MBA program, which attracts a wide variety of students at any level of their career, but still brings the average class size to less than 30 students. Here, students are “very diverse in terms of ethnicity, race, ideas, background, and ages,” though “most are in their mid- to late twenties and have two to five years of work experience.” As a “very diverse and professional environment,” CSUF caters to students “looking to move up in their careers.” In the classroom, students keep the bar high, but competition low. Generally, students are “very sociable people,” who are “pleasant to study with.”

Collegiate activities are generally “geared toward undergraduate students,” so most MBA candidates are “only at the business school for class or to study.” Nonetheless, CSUF offers a nice school environment on their main campus, where the business school building offers “plenty of nice, quiet, clean study areas.” Caffeine-fueled students add, “The Starbucks in the business school is a definite plus,” and there is a “state-of-the-art gym provided to students, free of charge.” Most students are quick to praise their cam- pus experience.